This is a good thing. We all know valve can’t count to 3, so the 2 will be the last one
Wouldn’t it be Steam Deck 2 Episode 2?
Steam Deck 2 rc 2
With how close they’ve been working with AMD I wouldn’t doubt if they know what is in the works and are waiting for that tech to mature.
Maybe related with AMDs next gen console GPU being delayed?
Powerglove style controllers with a holographic screen.
Back then, we really couldn’t engage with a display manufacturer to do exactly what we were after because they didn’t really understand the product category, or who would be buying the screen, or why it would matter. Now that picture has changed and we’re able to get custom work done.
Why would literally any of those questions be of concern to the screen manufacturer? And I don’t understand, did Valve begin work on this in 1918? How could anyone not understand the product category?
Display manufacturers may understand what Valve might want in a screen, but they might not understand how many units of a screen of such a specification they would be able to sell — is it going to be a custom job for just a few thousand of valve’s experimental console (which may have different degrees of success), or is it going to be something that they can sell to more people and a wider audience.
Does Steam Deck support VRR on its built-in display?
No it does not. It has HDR though and a 90Hz refresh rate.
I wonder if the technology they’re waiting for is a more powerful arm processor?
Highly doubt it, because pretty much all games are compiled for x86, and would require dynamic recompilation, which I’m turn costs performance.
Or… they could perform the recompilation beforehand just like the precompiled shaders. Hmmm… that would make it pretty viable!
I think it’s well in valves wheelhouse after proton to do something similar and revolutionise x86 to ARM translation. But at the moment better chips still need to arrive for that too be good enough for a product to built around. Which is why it’s the first thing i think of when they say they need technology to advance more before they make a new steam deck.
x86 to ARM translation is a fairly different problem than what proton solves, so I don’t think it’s clearly in their wheelhouse. Proton / wine is mostly just an implementation of windows libraries on Linux, but doing efficient x86 emulation on arm is a compiler problem. I would guess that Valve could do it or at least hire people to do it, but it’s a bit of a different skill set. Doing x86 efficiently on ARM (particularly with concurrency) also likely involves some extensions to ARM like Apple does with their chips. I haven’t heard if the snapdragon elite chips have anything for x86 compatibility baked in at all. Frankly, I’m treating the snapdragon elite with a fair degree of scepticism until you can actually buy the thing, but I hope it’s good!
Then maybe those chips that would help with that process is what they’re waiting for then.
I don’t think they’re waiting for ARM specifically. If that ends up working out, sure, but if they can get x86 with the right power to performance ratio I doubt they would complain.
No
Did your uncle at valve spill the beans?
Architecture emulation for current gen games is exceptionally unlikely right now. At a fundamental level, wine/proton doesn’t change the instructions the code describes, rather it translates the input and output. It’s a reimplementation of the same instructions in Windows. For architecture crossing you’d either have to create virtual hardware, which adds tremendous overhead, or recompile the binary. Recompilation is theoretically possible, but for x86_64 to ARM64, for games no less, it’s beyond the realm of mortals. It’s like how some jokes can’t be translated between languages; the structure and vocabulary is just too different.
Microsoft and Apple have some form of x86 to Arm translation at the moment. Also I know it’s not something that’s really done now. I’m not arguing it can be done right this second cause valve are talking about that there’s something they want to do but can’t yet and need technology to get a bit better before they move on with their plan. I’m saying this feels like the most logical thing that they’re waiting for.
Qc X elite says hi
Edit: 2.5-3.5x faster cpu and 2x faster gpu at slightly higher tdp (23W vs 19W). Even if the arm x86 emulation has 40% overhead it’d still be faster and more efficient especially at lower power limits where arm shines.
- This is based on benchmarks from Qualcomm, not Internet reviews right? IDK if I’d be buying tickets for the hype train just yet.
- Shifting all the software to work on ARM is going to take time. By the time Valve got everything running on ARM, AMD would have released something equal or better by then.
- Any word on pricing for those?
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This is not based on benchmarks from qualcomm, it’s based on benchmarks revievers ran on demo units.
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You don’t need to shift the software to work on arm. Most essential things already work and the ones that don’t can be emulated. All valve needs to do is to make it seamless. And unless they also switch to arm its a long shot for amd to achieve a 2x uplift in a single generation.
- Kind of I guess. Reviewers where allowed to run specific benchmarks approved by Qualcomm on laptops specifically made for Qualcomm at the launch event, not consumer models.
- What games run in ARM today? I’m not aware of any games that run nativly on ARM, meaning games would need to be emulate from Windows to Linux, then from x86 to ARM. Not ideal.
- And we still don’t have a price. The APU in the Steam Deck is a budget chip, if the X Elite is really 2x the competition Qualcomm will likely be charging almost 2x the price
I hate being that guy… but nobody is emulating windows. It’s a compatibility layer. If they can emulate the x86 instructions (like apple is doing with the M chips and some open source implementations out there) then he compatibility layer could be 100% compiled for arm.
I’ve seen pc games running on phones using this tech. With valve backing, it’s definitely possible, but not before stea,m deck 3
Only 10% of games are verified for Stream OS, with 40% being listed as unsupported. I’m pretty sure Valve is more focused on stability for Steam OS, switching to ARM only complicates things at the moment. Once they have that figured out they can consider ARM. The games that work on ARM now do so because of developer support, most games aren’t supported yet.
I’m not saying it’s impossible, of course it is. It’s just not the time for the Steam Deck to switch to ARM, SD 3 sounds like a reasonable time to consider it.
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Qc can go fuck themselves. Bunch of patent trolls.
GPD WIN 4 would like to have a word
AMDs 7000 series APUS (and Z1) aren’t efficient enough, no performant enough to really warrant a real upgrade if valve is going for a console like experience.
Sure you can get 10% more performance at the same power level, but why bother? Valve had to custom design their own APU to hit their power goals, and there’s no way chasing that yearly 0-10% gains is going to pay off.
Whatever. You can clock down a 7840 and it will be plenty efficient.
Bruh that psp knockoff looks like straight garbage to use compared to the deck.
